Dirty Canals – Reading Comprehension Worksheet

Most sixth graders have walked past a drainage canal without ever wondering what it is for. It is a ditch, usually straight, usually half full of leaves, and it does one job: it carries rainwater off the streets before the streets can flood. When it stops doing that job, a neighborhood finds out quickly. This dirty canals reading comprehension worksheet is built on that moment. A two page story follows a girl who looks into the canal behind her house after a long rain, finds the pipe packed shut, and helps her neighbors open it again.

The passage runs 747 words across two full pages, which is the reading stamina a sixth grader is expected to carry on a state assessment, and it measures on grade: a Flesch-Kincaid level of 6.5 with a fifteen word average sentence and real variation between the long sentences and the short ones. Two content words are defined inside the sentences that introduce them, culvert and silt, so students practice pulling a meaning out of context rather than out of a glossary. The questions page of this 6th grade reading comprehension worksheet asks four multiple choice items and one written response, and every one of them reaches across both pages of the story: central idea, a cause drawn from the second page, the meaning of a word in context, and an inference from the final sentence. The written response asks students to explain what blocked the canal and what the neighbors did, using evidence from both pages. The download is a four page PDF, the answer key is the last page, and the key quotes the story so it can be marked quickly.

What’s Included

• A printable dirty canals reading comprehension worksheet in PDF format
• A 747 word original story printed across two full pages, with a full illustration
• Four multiple choice questions with four options each, drawn from both passage pages
• One written response with five ruled lines for a full explanation
• A complete answer key page that quotes the story for each answer

Three Reasons This Helps Kids

• A two page story builds reading stamina, which is what a middle school assessment actually measures alongside comprehension.
• Questions that reach across both pages stop students from answering out of the first paragraph and force them back into the text.
• The written response asks for a mechanism and its evidence, which is the constructed response format students meet on state tests.

Ideas for Teachers and Parents

• Read the first page together and stop before the second, then ask students to predict how the canal gets opened.
• Have students underline the sentence that defines culvert and the sentence that defines silt before answering question three.
• Use the written response as a paired activity: one student drafts, the partner checks that every claim cites the story.
• Pair the sheet with a walk to a real storm drain and have students describe what they see in a paragraph.

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